


hope remains hopeless (the joke is that it’s always there)

by azulaahai



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (don't @ me), Alayne angst! this time - even angstier, Angst, F/M, Open Ending, Sansa has identity issues, Unresolved Angst, book!verse post-canon AU, contains late night visitors but not in a fun way, or show!verse canon divergent AU I suppose, someone teach me how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 06:19:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17575478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaahai/pseuds/azulaahai
Summary: It would have been so very sweet a reunion - Jon Snow finding his long-lost cousin hidden away in the Vale - had it not been for one simple fact; Sansa Stark had been dead for years now.Years after Sansa's alleged murder in King's Landing, Alayne Stone finds one of her father's visitors uncomfortably familiar.





	hope remains hopeless (the joke is that it’s always there)

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure what's going on, as usual. Heed tags - it's angst, folks. More book! than show!verse this time. Post-canon - set a few years after the Purple Wedding. Please note that R+L=J is common knowledge in this AU (so Jon and Sansa are officially cousins), for no logical reason, I just felt this was angsty enough already thank you very much
> 
> Title and opening quote from "Whisper in her ear" by The Milk Carton Kids

_if I had one more try, I could fly with her_

_hide away the years_

_if I had one more life, I could die with her_

_a whisper in her ear_

 

It could have been so sweet a reunion.

 

His long lost cousin, whom last Jon saw her had been a child, excited at the prospect of playing adult. Sansa Stark, who’d had her head filled with songs and stories since childhood. Who used to scold him and Robb for teasing her. 

Here she _was_ , standing before him, after all these years and horrors. Same oceans for eyes, same kind smile. Her hair was no longer auburn, she was a woman grown, but it was her, it was _Sansa_ , she was here and he’d _found_ her.

 

Jon’d found her. 

 

Aye, it could have been so very sweet a reunion, were it not for one simple fact.

 

Sansa Stark had been dead for years now.

 

* *

 

Alayne had known he was coming.

 

Her cousin. No, that was silly - Alayne had no cousins. Father had no siblings, so how could Alayne have cousins?

 

Jon Snow. Lord commander Snow. 

 

She’d known he was coming.

 

Her father had not wanted her to know, but Alayne knew things even he did not want her to, nowadays. She did not know if she should be proud or ashamed of that fact. Alayne was surprised her lord father allowed the visit at all. Was lord Baelish not worried this Jon Snow would recognize Sansa Stark, his long-lost cousin?

 

No, of course not.

 

Sansa Stark was long dead, slain by one of the king’s men as she attempted to flee the charge of the murder of king Joffrey. 

 

In the Vale was only Alayne, bastard daughter of lord Baelish. 

 

Of course Jon Snow would not know her. _Men see only what they expect to see._

 

But when Jon Snow had stepped into the court, no matter how forewarned she had been of his arrival, there had been a part of Alayne that wanted him to, _wanted_ him to _know_ her, a part of her that forgot who she was for a brief moment, forgot that she had no cousins, forgot that she was a woman grown and hidden. Part of her that wanted to run down the steps of the dias of the throne in the High Hall of the Eyrie and embrace the boy she’d known as the man he’d become.

 

 

 

 

But Alayne remained on the dias, remained still beside the throne.

 

And Jon Snow, the boy, the man, the lord who stepped in, the one she’d known a few years and a lifetime ago, looked up at her, at her father on the throne (her father, _yes,_ her _father_ \- Father that died was her father no more) and with an ice in his eyes she did not recognize, Jon let his eyes pass her over and spoke to lord Baelish again.

 

Alayne let out a breath, realizing an equally relieving and heartbreaking fact.

 

Jon Snow did not recognize Sansa Stark.

 

But then again, she’d been dead for years now.

 

* *

 

Part of him knew it was her, instantly, the minute he walked in the room. 

 

It was strange. She did not look the same; her hair darker, her posture stiffer, her frame taller and broader. This was not Sansa of the sunset that had ridden south to live happily ever after with the prince of her dreams; this was Sansa wrapped in shadow. He should not have known her, not so immediately - yet when he stepped into the hall and saw her standing there, there was something in him that knew in an instant where he’d seen her before.

 

It was impossible, of course. A dead girl walking around in the Eyrie? Madness. Yet, with a sting of bitterness, Jon thought that he if anyone knew death was not always final. 

 

And it was her.

It was her, her, her.

 

 

* *

 

A knock on her door in the dead of night.

 

First she thought she must be imagining it. It felt like part of a dream, and Alayne was tempted, oh so tempted, to allow herself to sink back into blunder. But there it was again; someone was knocking, indeed, softly yet firmly.

 

She lay still in her bed, suddenly wide awake. Alayne never slept very heavily, nowadays, never quite able to let down her guard, not even in sleep. Someone knocking at this hour was cause for concern, naturally, but any true threat would not be bothered knocking, surely. Alayne still grabbed the knife from beneath her bed, holding it in her left hand as she opened the door with her right. 

  
The flickering light of the torches in the found her trough the open door, and as she saw the ragged, scarred face of her late night visitor, Alayne dropped the knife, that fell to the floor with a thud. 

 

His eyes. Father’s eyes, Arya’s eyes. Stark grey.

 

He had only to say one word to unravel her, the sound of it seeming to echo in the night, become a roar in her ears.

 

” _Sansa_.”

 

That name, oh, that _name_ ; how she’d longed and dreaded to hear it, to be called it, to deserve it. Sansa Stark was no more, Alayne was not her, she’d been once, perhaps, but not anymore; this man was a stranger to Alayne. She did not know him, could not trust him, he called her by a dead girl’s name and looked at her now with a warmth meant for someone who was long gone. To Alayne, Jon Snow was nothing; a pawn in her father’s schemes, at best.

 

So what made her do it?

 

What made her say it?

 

”You’d better come in.” 

 

* * *

 

”It truly is you.” 

 

He hardly dared believe his own words. The girl turned to face him, her hair appearing raven black in the dimness of the chamber.

 

”My name -”

 

”Sansa. Cousin Sansa.” The relief he felt was beyond him - to see her, in the flesh, a Stark alive and well.  


”Sansa Stark is dead”, the girl said, but she did not seem convinced herself. Moonlight making its way into the room through the window cast shadows across her features. She was watching him, eyes of ice meeting his, and Jon wondered what she saw, how he appeared to her. ”Slain, in King’s Landing. I should have thought you knew that, Lord Commander.” 

 

”Have they hurt you?” Jon was not entirely sure who he meant. The girl seemed taken aback by the query, opening her mouth before quickly closing it again, at loss for words.

 

* * *

 

_Have they hurt you?_

 

Such a simple question; it was almost juvenile in its innocence, yet it contained so much genuine concern and affection that something in Alayne broke as he uttered it.

 

_Have they hurt you?_

 

The words seemed to echo in her chambers. She did not know who _they_ were, whom he was referring to, yet she discovered she had only one word on her tongue, one word she wanted to shout at him. _Yes._ They’d all hurt her. How could he ask? Of course they had hurt her. They had hurt her and broken her and plundered her and killed her and she was nothing now, nothing.

 

Alayne could not tell him that. She did not know how.

 

”I do not know what you’re speaking of.” Her throat was sore, her voice hoarse. _I should never have opened the door._ Letting him in had let other things in, as well, things Alayne had done her very best to keep out. ”You must leave, lord Snow.” 

 

In the almost-darkness, she could barely make out his features, could not read his reaction, and then suddenly he took a step towards her. Alayne did not step away, did not want to, was not able to. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his skin, feel his breath on her face when he spoke.

 

* * *

 

”Sansa”, he said again, harder this time, frustrated, stubborn. ”Cousin Sansa.”

 

Silence followed his words - moonlight, and something more, glimmered in her eyes. 

 

”We are leaving in a fortnight.” 

 

A sharp intake of breath from her. Did she not know that, or could she merely anticipate what would come next?

 

”Come with us”, he said. It sounded like a plea, to his own ears. For a second she appeared frightened, aye, terrified, eyes wide, biting her lip; then her eyes fluttered closed, and when she opened them again they were frozen once more.

 

”You will leave my chambers now, lord Snow.”

 

”Sansa -”

 

* * *

 

”Sansa Stark is dead, lord Snow.”

 

It was the truth, she realized as she said it. Alayne was no lady, and if she had been once, what difference did that make? Foolish, she had been, to let this man in her chambers. Foolish, she had been, to find comfort in his familiarity. What would her father say?  
  
She silenced the small voice in the back of her mind wondering instead what _Father_ would say, what her old father, her _kind_ father would say. He would have wanted her to trust the man before him, she knew he would, but Alayne of the Vale could not take advice from Eddard Stark, treacherous hand of the king.

 

”Sansa Stark is dead”, she repeated. ”She was slain in King’s Landing.”

 


End file.
